Eviction begins along the banks of Adyar

Following a stand-off between the residents and officials, the Shankar Nagar police on Wednesday filed an FIR against nearly 100 people for resisting eviction.

Because of the flood during the last monsoon season, the state government had decided to remove the encroachments along the river bank. As many as 804 buildings, including shops, in areas like Mookambika Nagar, Stalin Nagar, Shanthi Nagar and Quaid-e-Milleth Nagar in and around Anakaputur were served with demolition notices.

Thirty houses were demolished last year and the rest were given a deadline till the end of March to vacate their houses. On Wednesday, the residents of the demolished houses had prevented the officials from entering their neighbourhood and tried to stop the eviction process.

Alternate housing facilities have been allocated for them in Semmenchery. However, the residents demanded alternate accommodation somewhere near Anakaputhur and not in Semmenchery, which is at least 25km away. Following this, a team of revenue officials led by Tambaram RDO R Chandrasekar, along with 300 policemen vacated all the houses and started the demolition on Thursday. “All the buildings will be demolished in a few days. Then we will hand over the land to PWD. They will make sure that the area will not be encroached in the future,” said RDO Chandrasekar.

The residents began to vacate since Thursday morning.